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Idiot Nation?

12:13 PM, Mar 14, 2008 • By JAIME SNEIDER
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Reports earlier this month that U.S. school kids didn't know squat had me shrieking O tempora! O mores!

Half of high-school students could not say what the Renaissance was.

Fewer than half can place the Civil War in the half-century 1850-1900.

But I'm feeling not so bad today, because we learn our comrades across the pond don't know anything either:

Nearly half of the UK population does not know what the Magna Carta is, according to a YouGov poll.

The survey commissioned by the British Library found 45 per cent of the 2,000 people questioned had no knowledge of the English charter.

And only 32 per cent knew that it set written limits on the authority of the monarch.

Since the Brits are really, really smart, or at least sound that way, the world can't be all bad, right?

More by Jaime Sneider